Our 2017 conference, The Big No, takes place April 27- 29 in Curtin Hall 175.
What does “no” say? Who and what says “no?”
“No’”s eruptive force transforms the argumentative landscape. From two-year old children to mature nation-states, the interruptive immediacy of naysaying can occur at surprising and inconvenient moments. From Thoreau to Gandhi to Marcuse, the will to nothing has provided a source of individual and collective creation.
“No” can be a language of protest and overcoming. Its power operates across lines of disciplines and ideology, across modes of writing and the refusal to write. Negation can resist or avoid authority, or can identify and highlight forces which insist on forms of complicity and agreement.
Plenary speakers include Joshua Clover, Katerina Kolozova, François Laruelle, Ariana Reines, and Frank B. Wilderson III
